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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How a little-known Texas city turned into the energy export gateway of the country
On New Year's Eve on the last day of 2015, the Port of Corpus Christi quietly exported the United States' first crude oil barrels in 40 years just two weeks after Congress lifted the ban that dated back to the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Less than a decade later, the sleepy Texas beachside city has expanded rapidly into America's largest energy export gateway through a network of pipelines, storage tanks, docks and, this week, the completion of a prolonged ship channel dredging and widening project that should soon allow the single port to ship out almost as much crude oil as Iraq. 'It's very similar to the real estate markets: Location, location, location,' Port of Corpus Christi CEO Kent Britton told Fortune, noting that the port's total tonnage volumes have essentially tripled in a decade. 'The growth has been just astronomical. It's truly astonishing.' The port is now shipping out more than 2.4 million barrels of oil daily—roughly 60% of the entire nation's crude exports—and almost 20% of the country's liquefied natural gas exports. Those LNG volumes are expected to almost double in a couple of years once LNG pioneer Cheniere Energy completes a series of expansions. Corpus Christi offers a series of logistical benefits for liquids that cannot be matched by the much larger Houston Ship Channel or any other ports. Corpus Christi is the closest to West Texas' landlocked Permian Basin, which began to boom along with the lifting of the export ban. Corpus is much less congested than Houston, and Corpus easily opens up to the Gulf of Mexico's deep waters, especially now that the port is dredged to 54-foot depths throughout. 'I think there's a there's a little bit of luck involved in just fortuitous timing,' Britton said. 'But there was also a concerted effort on the port's part to say, 'We're going to have the deepest ship channel on the Gulf Coast, and you should be coming here.'' The federal feasibility study to expand the port started way back in 1990 only for the funding not to start flowing until 2018—such is the pace of bureaucracy, but well timed after the lifting of the export ban—when heavy construction began for the first of four phases—all of which are now finished. Likewise, Permian Basin and overall U.S. oil and gas production spiked to the record highs of today. 'As the Permian production grew, your exports grew, and the Corpus docks grew,' said Kristy Oleszek, director of crude oil at East Daley Analytics. 'They were all growing in tandem. And not by coincidence. 'The Permian barrel is a very desirable quality to export,' she added. 'One thing Corpus really provides is direct access from the Permian to the docks.' The Permian and Corpus may be more than 450 miles apart across most of Texas connected via long-haul pipelines, but it's still a straight path without much traffic in between. The Corpus channel improvement project cost $625 million and is projected to save customers up to a combined $200 million per year by speeding up the trips of crude carriers and using fewer vessels. Smaller ships will no longer be needed as much to top off the bigger crude carriers in deeper waters because they couldn't fully load at the shallower 47-foot depths—a time-consuming and expensive extra step. 'We're moving more crude oil now than we were five years ago with fewer ships,' Britton said, with traffic now more focused on very large crude carriers (VLCCs) and Suezmax tankers. The Suezmax, which holds 1 million barrels, can now fully load at the deeper depths. Even amid weaker crude prices and the Permian maturing and its production potentially plateauing, Britton still sees Corpus' export volumes growing to as much as 3 million barrels a day in the next couple of years as more pipeline and dock expansions are completed. 'Other than the original creation of the port, this is probably the most significant project we've ever done, both from a cost perspective and from an impact on world markets,' he said. Before the port's improvement project started, there were two key and somewhat serendipitous events initiated separately by Occidental Petroleum (159 in the Fortune 500) and Cheniere (275 in the Fortune 500). Already positioned with an OxyChem petrochemicals facility by Corpus, Occidental bought the shuttered Naval Station Ingleside by the port in 2012 for just $82 million to transform it into an export terminal for its products. After the lifting of the crude export ban, Oxy focused on making its renamed Ingleside Energy Center a prime oil-exporting hub. After building it out, Oxy sold it as part of a terminals and pipelines package for $2.6 billion in 2018. Enbridge, the largest midstream pipeline and terminal company in North America, then bought it for $3 billion in 2021 and has continued to grow it ever since, including new storage tank construction ongoing now. Enbridge also is expanding its Gray Oak Pipeline to transport even more oil from the Permian to Corpus for export. The Enbridge Ingleside Energy Center is by far the largest oil-exporting terminal in the Americas, able to simultaneously load two VLCCs—the largest oil tankers that can carry 2 million barrels of oil each. And Enbridge is just one of several oil exports at the port. Likewise, Cheniere first began planning Corpus Christi LNG way back in 2003, but it was designed as a gas-import project long before the U.S. was approaching any degree of energy security following the shale oil and gas boom that took off shortly thereafter. Cheniere soon pivoted, building Corpus Christi LNG as the first large, greenfield LNG export project built in the country. Construction started in 2015 and exports commenced in 2018. 'They did such a fabulous job pivoting from that import play when the shale revolution started, and everyone realized that we were going to have excess gas to become an exporter,' Britton said of Cheniere. 'They just they just hit it right. They get a little lucky on the timing as well, but it was a lot of vision and recognition of what's going on in the market to flip that switch.' As a result, the U.S. became a net energy exporter for the first time ever in late 2019—a position that's only been strengthened ever since. Cheniere is currently completing a third phase of Corpus Christi construction by late 2025 or early 2026, and then a midsized follow-up project is planned to take Corpus Christi LNG to an export capacity of 16.5 million metric tons of LNG annually now to more than 30 million metric tons. Cheniere has the acreage for a fourth phase of expansions but has not yet made any decisions. 'LNG is really taking off,' Oleszek said. 'Crude oil kind of had its day in the sun and now it's moved over to LNG. Crude oil is still growing, but not nearly as much [as gas].' This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Port of Corpus Christi officials celebrate completion of Ship Channel Improvement Project
Large ships passed by the Port of Corpus Christi on June 2 as federal, state and local leaders who gathered there to celebrate the forthcoming completion of the Ship Channel Improvement Project offered them a friendly wave. The navigational project increases the depth of the ship channel from 47 feet to 54 feet and widens it from 400 feet to 530 feet to allow large draft vessels to navigate the passage. It also adds barge shelves to the outside of the channel to provide for a safer trip for barges and ships. Port officials say it will expand capacity to export crude oil, liquefied natural gas and other commodities at a less expensive rate by allowing larger vessels such as Very Large Crude Carriers to move through the channel. The expansion will result in fewer ships transporting more cargo, saving about $200 million in annual transportation costs, said Kent Britton, the Port of Corpus Christi CEO. 'This is probably the most significant thing the port has done,' he said. 'When I got here, we'd started saying we were the energy port of America. I was new to the port and new to the port industry and thought that was a pretty bold statement. 'When you see what's happened in the succeeding eight years, it truly is humbling, and it's humbling to be able to lead this organization,' he said. The ceremony on June 2 marked the culmination of about 35 years' effort on the major infrastructure project, which began when the U.S. Congress first authorized a study to look at the possibility of dredging the ship channel. Congress authorized the project some 17 years later at the proposed depth. The port obtained first-dollar funding for the project in 2018, three years after Congress passed legislation lifting a ban on crude oil exports. Phase 1 entailed digging the channel from the Gulf of Mexico, since renamed by the U.S. government as Gulf of America, to Harbor Island. With funding for Phase 2, the port continued to dredge from Harbor Island to west of the La Quinta Junction, followed by Phase 3, which dredged the channel west of the La Quinta junction to Chemical TB. The latest phase deepens and widens the channel from Chemical TB to Viola TB and is expected to end in the second quarter of 2025, although additional maintenance and dredging will follow to ensure there is no shoaling and to ensure the entire channel has been deepened to 54 feet, according to port officials. For the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which entered into a project partnership agreement with the Port of Corpus Christi in 2017 to share project costs, the ceremony was an opportunity to witness the result of years of partnerships with stakeholders who helped design, engineer and fund the channel project. The corps contributed about $450 million of the $625 million investment, and the port made a $180 million capital contribution, port officials said. Under the leadership of the port commission, the port has invested about $1 billion in the last 10 years to build new infrastructure to benefit the region and open up the port for customers. The ceremony on June 2 is the second event that the port has organized in the last several months in anticipation of the completion of the Ship Channel Improvement Project. Port officials and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn attended a town hall in late March to discuss the importance of the project and the role of its export capacity in strengthening trade and American energy dominance. With the lift of the ban on crude oil exports, the port began shipping large volumes of oil through the channel, advancing it from exporting less than 100,000 barrels per day in the first year after the ban was lifted to 2.4 million barrels last year. The port's proximity to Eagle Ford Shale and the Permian Basin, major oil production fields, has helped attract $65 billion in investments to the Coastal Bend over the last decade, according to a news release issued by the Port of Corpus Christi. Port customers and port-related activities generate about 95,000 jobs, the news release said. During the ceremony on June 2, Omar Garcia, the chief external affairs officer for the Port of Corpus Christi, said the new 54-foot depth is already providing opportunities for economic growth, which translates into more community investments and new jobs. 'When I arrived at the Port of Corpus Christi in the fall of 2018, this gateway was the nation's fourth-largest port in total waterborne tonnage,' he said. Today, the port is the largest crude oil exporter in the U.S. and the third-largest in the world, with only Saudi Arabia and Iraq exporting more crude oil, he said. With the project's fourth phase nearing conclusion, port officials and city leaders thanked current and past commissioners for their efforts to secure project funding by traveling to Washington, D.C., to meet with representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the congressional budget office. He thanked Solomon P. Ortiz, a congressman representing Corpus Christi in 1990, for persuading Congress to authorize the feasibility study through the Water Resources Development Act. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat serving on the House Appropriations Committee, spoke at the ceremony about working with U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud, a Republican on the committee, to obtain $157 million in fiscal year 2023 to launch and finish the final phase of the project. 'From energy exports to military activity, from small businesses to global markets, this port connects South Texas to the rest of the world,' he said. 'With the $625 million channel improvement project completed, we are ready to lead the world into the next generation of trade.' More: The Port of Corpus Christi may abandon a desalination permit. Here's why. More: Permit approved for Corpus Christi Ship Channel dredging project This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Port of Corpus Christi officials celebrate channel deepening project
Associated Press
16-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Port of Corpus Christi Customers Move 51.3 Million Tons in Q1 2025
Corpus Christi, Texas, April 16, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Port of Corpus Christi and its customers moved 51.3 million tons of commodities through the Corpus Christi Ship Channel in the first quarter of 2025, driven primarily by increases in crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments. The 51.3 million tons moved in Q1 2025 reflects the highest first quarter in the history of the Port of Corpus Christi as well as the first time volumes exceeded 50 million tons during that period. The Port's overall quarterly record, set in Q4 2024, sits at 54 million tons. Crude oil shipments in Q1 2025 totaled 33.4 million tons, up 10.5 percent over the same period last year, while LNG volumes were up 12.3 percent to 4.3 million tons. Increases were also seen in dry bulk and break bulk commodities. Overall tonnage in Q1 2025 was up 5 percent from the prior year. 'We congratulate our customers for a strong start to 2025 and for carrying the momentum that ended a record-setting 2024,' said Kent Britton, Chief Executive Officer for the Port of Corpus Christi. 'With the pending conclusion of the final phase of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project, the Port of Corpus Christi remains committed to ensuring our customers have access to world-class infrastructure to support their needs for ongoing success.' When fully completed in the second quarter of 2025, the project will render the Corpus Christi Ship Channel the most improved waterway on the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida, featuring a deeper (54 feet Mean Lower Low Water) and wider (530 feet) ship channel with additional barge shelves. The Port of Corpus Christi also continues to invest in various capital needs throughout its footprint, an ongoing effort building on over $1 billion spent by the Port over the past decade for that purpose. About Port Corpus ChristiLisa Hinojosa Port of Corpus Christi 3618856165 [email protected]
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Port of Corpus Christi Customers Close 2024 with Record Numbers
New High Mark Set by Port of Corpus Christi Customers for Seventh Consecutive Year Vessel Departing Port of Corpus Christi Corpus Christi, Texas, Jan. 31, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Port of Corpus Christi and its customers moved 206.5 million tons through the Corpus Christi Ship Channel in 2024, a new high mark driven by increases in crude oil and dry bulk commodities, including agricultural products. Port customers also ended 2024 with record quarterly tonnage (54 million tons) in Q4 2024 – a 4.3 percent increase over the same period last year and a 1.9 percent increase from the previous quarterly record (Q3 2024). Leading commodities in Q4 2024 included crude oil, refined products and liquefied natural gas. For the year, crude oil shipments increased 3.5 percent over 2023 to 130.5 million tons, while dry bulk and agricultural goods increased 8.1 percent and 38.7 percent, respectively. The new annual tonnage record is 1.7 percent higher than the previous record set in 2023, marking the seventh consecutive record year set by Port of Corpus Christi customers. 'The commitment of Port of Corpus Christi customers to deliver American energy and essential goods to our trading partners and allies around the world reinforces to the global marketplace the resilience of the South Texas Coastal Bend,' said Kent Britton, Chief Executive Officer for the Port of Corpus Christi. 'The Port of Corpus Christi is grateful to the community of Port customers who continue to meet the demands of an evolving energy market.' Completion of the fourth and final phase of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project is projected for early 2025. Once completed, the Coastal Bend region will be home to the most improved waterway on the Gulf Coast, from Texas to Florida, with a deeper (54 feet Mean Lower Low Water) and wider (530 feet) ship channel with additional barge shelves. 'On behalf of my fellow Port of Corpus Christi commissioners, I want to congratulate our customers for the milestones achieved by our gateway in 2024,' said David Engel, Chairman of the Port of Corpus Christi Commission. 'Over the past 10 years, the Port Commission has supported the investment of more than $1 billion in capital projects to ensure our industry partners have the infrastructure they need to be successful. We look forward to building on that commitment in the years ahead.' About Port Corpus Christi As a leader in U.S. energy export ports and a major economic engine of Texas and the nation, the Port of Corpus Christi is the third-largest port in the United States in total waterborne tonnage. Strategically located on the western Gulf of Mexico with a 36-mile, soon to be 54-foot (MLLW) deep channel, the Port of Corpus Christi is a major gateway to international and domestic maritime commerce. The Port of Corpus Christi has excellent railroad and highway network connectivity via three North American Class-1 railroads and two major interstate highways. With an outstanding staff overseen by its seven-member commission, the Port of Corpus Christi is 'Moving America's Energy.' For more information about the Port of Corpus Christi, visit Attachment Vessel Departing Port of Corpus Christi CONTACT: Lisa Hinojosa Port of Corpus Christi 3618856165 lhinojosa@ in to access your portfolio
